Faith and Hope Make a Waiting Man

“I promise I’ll be back.”

Norton’s grip on his father’s shoulders tightened. His own shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of those words. Would he really be back? Could he even dare to hope that he would?

Mr. Reed sat there, his eyes blinking in monotony. It took a few more seconds for the words to fully register. Mr. Reed was old. He was seventy-odd years old. The skin of his hands was translucent. His blue-green veins were prominent. As clearly visible as his sky blue eyes. Fading but intent. And where everything else had withered, the intent look in his eyes had proved to be immortal.

He placed a withering hand over his son’s arm. They were in a large, rustic room. It was noisy and full of- well- a variety of smells. It was the main lounge of Fair Heart’s Home for the Aged. Norton had been living with his parents until a few years ago. It had been a carefree life. No responsibility. No one who relied on him, for anything. That was until his mother had died. Everything had gone downhill from there. The tranquility of their lives had shattered overnight.

This was their reality now. A retired father, and an unemployed son. And so it was no surprise that Norton had jumped at the prospect of starting a small business with his friends. The place was 20 hours away. It would keep him out of town for months on end. He was staying at a college friend’s place. They would start a business out of buying used car parts then selling them at a higher price. The idea had worked before in college. It would work again. He hoped.

Norton shuffled to his feet. He gently took his father’s hand in his and touched it to his moist eyes. Then he softly kissed it and replaced it on the ailing man’s lap. His father had always been a man of few words. Old age had further reduced his vocabulary to only a few select syllables. He fixed Norton with his intent gaze.

“I know,” he said. His uneven voice marked with crystal clear conviction.

And so Norton left. He left, and he never came back. Summer turned to fall. Fall to winter. And winter to spring. And repeat.

And Mr. Reed? He waited. He waited as the day was long. He waited day, and he waited night. And when a nurse was short with him. He uncharacteristically bridled.

“You wait and see, you!” he would say. “My son will be here soon. And he’ll show you!”

The nurses had grown indifferent to this threat that they had gradually come to learn was an empty one.

On the other hand, Norton was beginning to be weighed down by debts he had taken for his startup. Debts he had intended to pay once he secured a strong foothold in the car parts industry. Once he could begin making profits instead of recording losses. That instance never came. He continued to work. The man who had never been known to work a day in his life was now known to never stop. There then came a point in his life, in Norton’s ambitious endeavors that he saw reality. The mist that was rising around him cleared away. And the truth stood bare in front of him.

It happened one evening as Norton was sitting in the garage-cum-workshop he used to work at. He had an oil stained rag in his hand, the other end of which he was using to polish a detached car bonnet. It squeaked noisily as the rag swiped side to side. This meticulous operation was interrupted by a shrill screaming. The garage door swung forth on its rusty hinges, screaming in protest.

Marcello, his long-time friend came in through the door. His jeans overalls were splattered with paint and grease.

“Hey,” said Norton looking up. “Done with the axle?”

“Done with the axle.” replied Marcello with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“What is it?” said Norton returning to his work.

“Nothing. Except that I’m leaving.”

Norton looked up sharply. To check if this was one of Marcello’s jokes. It wasn’t. There was nothing humorous about the way he was smiling. It was a painful smile, more a grimace than anything. His voice teetered dangerously close to breaking. He talked about how their lives were going nowhere. Their work was going nowhere. They were helplessly rammed into their current painful state of lives.

“It’s like a jammed brake, dangit! The darned thing won’t move. I have goals, you know. We both do. We’re young. So much of our life is ahead of us. But it just won’t move!” Marcello looked down, his elbows on his knees.

“You know what I’m gonna say,” Norton’s manner was subdued. An air of calm and quiet seemed to embody him. “Persevere. Keep going. There will be an end to this. As there is to every man’s hard labor.”

“I can’t. I have commitments. I have family. They aren’t going to wait forever,” Marcello seemed more to be convincing himself than anyone. “And unless you haven’t noticed. We’re not moving. It’s been 15 years, Nort. Have a heart. Go back. Go to your father. Scratch this thing like we never started. I’m leaving,” And so Marcello walked away.

Norton didn’t go back. He gave up, but he didn’t go back. He fell into neglect. He was a wreck. There was nothing he could do. All those years were lost. Would he have even a granule of self respect if he did go back? What excuse would he give his father for being a horrible failure. A waste. Norton was hired as a lorry driver soon after. He lived life without really breathing. Saw things without really feeling. And he resolved never to go back. It was futile.

Mr. Reed’s health declined. He spoke of his son more frequently now than he had had in his entire life. The nurses, new ones now. Younger, and more compassionate, humored him. They encouraged his fancies. They nodded with comprehension as he told them about how his son would be here any minute now. Just you wait.

It was a frosty December night. The wind whipped across the trees. And the snow fell hard. Mr. Reed was on the ventilator. His breaths came fast and ragged. It was common knowledge in the nurses’ room that dear Mr. Reed who always spoke of a son, who possibly did not even exist, and had an unusual habit of collecting the small apple juice cartons that came for lunch, was now on his last hour.

So when the sweet tempered nurse came to check on him, she was reasonably surprised to see him sitting up. And gazing with intelligence in his eyes.

“Can you bring me some more juice boxes, dear? My son loved to collect these. He-” he broke into a laugh here-which came out as a wheezy cackle at best-as he pondered on his fondest memories. “-He used to jump on these empty cartons. It would make such a sound. As wake up the entire neighborhood! I used to after him with my roll of morning paper. But he didn’t even run! He just fell back and laughed. He knew his father wouldn’t touch a hair on his head, the little rascal! I love him too much.”

This burst of excitement was clearly too much for him, as he sank back into his bed sheets. His frail chest heaved alarmingly.

“I’ll bring them in right away, Mr. Reed.”

“You hurry up, dear. I have this gut feeling, you know. He’ll be here any second now. I can feel it.” With this last effort, Mr. Reed fell back again.

The room was left empty again. The room became silent, except for the steady beeping of the heart rate monitor, and the ticking of the wall clock. Tick, tick, tick, tap, tap.

The ticks were getting replaced by taps. The tap of shoes. Good quality shoes. You could tell by the sound. They were leather-skinned, polished black shoes. Expensive, without question.

Someone entered the room. The taps continued until the figure reached the bed side. Mr. Reed looked up.

“My son. I knew-” His words stopped midway. His heart dropped. This was no son of his.

“Your son isn’t coming back, Mr. Reed. Stop amusing yourself,” said the stranger in the black hat and crisp suit. His complexion was deathly white. There was a striking contrast between his attire and the frightening shade of his skin.

“The cold has not been nice to you, lad,” said Mr. Reed to break the eerie silence.

“Life has not been nice to you, Mr. Reed. Now come with me. You’ve done a life’s worth of waiting.”

Mr. Reed was moving. The beeps had stopped. There was now only a shrill, continuous beep. People were rushing into the room. But that didn’t concern Mr. Reed anymore. He wasn’t sick anymore. A sick person couldn’t possibly move at such a swift speed. He felt great. So alive. How ironic that he was anything but.

“Quite a few pickups today. More than usual. But that comes as no surprise, really. It’s pretty heavy this time of year. What with the icy roads. Cars all slipping about. You were the only one who was not a motorist, Mr. Reed. On my list,” explained the stranger in incessant speech. The last sentence he added for clarity, when he picked Mr. Reed’s clueless look.

Mr. Reed wasn’t entirely unobservant. His attention was simply diverted elsewhere. It was the mess of vehicles and sirens that sounded below them as they drifted over that had grasped his attention.

“Ah, we’ll be picking five here,” said the fair complexioned man nonchalantly. “Three more on Parkland Avenue. These lorry drivers are one of a kind. One wrong move, and they take ten lives. Drunk driving upon all that,” he droned on in his ceaseless manner.

Mr. Reed drifted in and out of consciousness, if his current state could be called by that name. There were more souls. It was getting crowded. Some chatter ensued. Mr. Reed moved away from the noise. He stood away from the crowd that was forming. Suddenly a hand closed upon his shoulder. The grasp was firm. He heard a vaguely familiar voice say:

“I promised I’d be back, didn’t I?”